2013 Photos: Gugu at Fox Searchlight TIFF Party

Video 2103: New film "Belle" by Director Amma Asante now running at TIFF 2013

The new film "Belle" by Director Amma Asante now running at TIFF 2013
Red Carpet Diary

Published on 9 Sep 2013

Gugu Mbatha-Raw takes the title role alongside Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Emily Watson and Canada's Sarah Gadon in the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate, bi-racial daughter of a Royal Navy admiral in 18th-century Britain. Distributed by OneLoad.com

Photos: 2013 Unknown photoshoot of Gugu

2013: Photos: Variety's 10 Brits to Watch

PHOTOS: Variety’s 10 Brits to Watch

BY VARIETY STAFF

Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Actress

“I’m a very cheerful person,” says Mbatha-Raw, “but I do enjoy the tragedy in stories.”

You can see Mbatha-Raw’s serious side in her choice of roles. The half-South African thespian — her first name is short for Gugulethu, which means “our pride” in Xhosa — is shooting Gina Pryce-Bythewood’s “Blackbird,” in which she plays a pop princess whose troubled life reveals the dark underbelly of the music industry. Her starring role in Fox Searchlight’s upcoming “Belle” focuses on a woman who helped overturn slavery laws in late 18th century England.

“What unites Belle and Blackbird is themes of identity,” she says. “They’re totally different worlds, but they do share a common story: they are both about young women trying to find their place in the world.”

After studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art — she calls the intensive three-year course “a baptism by fire” — her most formative early roles include Juliet at the Royal Exchange in Manchester opposite Andrew Garfield’s Romeo. “It was a great training ground, technically and emotionally,” she says. Another early influential role was on Channel 4’s “Fallout,” in which she played a poor teenage girl with a violent boyfriend. “It was the first time that I got to play a layered, conflicted woman,” she says. “It’s something I really look forward in all my roles.”

Indeed, her dream parts include Cleopatra and Billie Holiday — the latter of whom she’s drawn to because of the ill-fated singer’s “dark and soulful journey,” she says. 

--Anthony Kaufman

2013: Video of 'Belle' Star Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the Only British Actor Who's Never Done a Period Film

'Belle' Star Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the Only British Actor Who's Never Done a Period Film

Published on 12 Sep 2013

Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and the all-star cast of Amma Asante's drama praise the director for attention to detail in their movie.
"I would say she is a genius. She is so direct in what she wanted and I don't think there is any fat on the movie whatsoever," says Sam Reid.

2013 Photos of Gugu and the cast of Belle at the Toronto International Film Festival

Belle

Directed by Amma Asante 
(14A)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw takes the title role alongside Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Emily Watson and Canada’s Sarah Gadon in the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate, bi-racial daughter of a Royal Navy admiral in 18th-century Britain.

Fans of English period drama are accustomed to its gorgeous settings, social graces, and sophisticated language. But what's often missing from those adaptations of Jane Austen or the Brontës is the institution at the foundation of that refined life: slavery. Austen wrote about how the slave trade made British gentry wealthy, but until now no film has brought both the glory and the contradictions of that life to the screen in such a powerful fashion.

In late eighteenth century England, Dido Elizabeth Belle is born to a white British admiral and a black Caribbean slave. The admiral's well-bred family is appalled, but when he returns to sea, custom dictates that they raise his child as an aristocrat. Britain's imposing Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) is both Dido's uncle and the family patriarch, and instructs this biracial young woman (Gugu Mbatha Raw) to respect both the law and the social codes of her station. She is a lady, but an embarrassment. How is she ever to marry?

Director Amma Asante found her inspiration for Belle in a true story, and she sets the plot in motion in sweeping, cinematic form. At the same time, she weaves in potent subplots: Dido's cousin Elizabeth (a pitch-perfect Sarah Gadon), raised in similar circumstances but untouched by racial discrimination; and a horrific, slave-trading case over which her powerful uncle must preside.

Belle is as beautiful and romantic as any Austen adaptation, but with new insights into its time. Both stirring and thought-provoking, it offers all the pleasures of period drama but returns to rest on Dido's simple question: "How may I be too high in rank to dine with the servants but too low to dine with my family?" 

Cameron Bailey